Few discussions about Perth outfit Pond are likely to pass without at least a nod to Kevin Parker’s Tame Impala. Not only have the two bands shared multiple members over the years, including Parker himself, but they’ve also evolved in what has seemed like musical parallel, with Pond providing a wilder, sun-scorched take on Parker’s poppy psych-rock. It’s unsurprising, then, that in the wake of Parker’s decision to largely ditch guitars for synthetic textures on 2015’s Currents, Pond have made a musical leap of their own, away from the 60s- and 70s-indebted sound of their earlier work and towards something more frilly-collared. Produced by Parker, their seventh album sees the band dabble in New Romanticism and the funk flexings of Prince. The result is a set of unashamed, swing-for-the-corners pop music – see the velour-smooth hit single Swept Me Off My Feet – tempered by some agreeably odd moments, such as the catatonic swirl of synths on apocalyptic opener 30,000 Megatons. Accessible but still absolutely out there, this is prog, but not as we know it.
